New Lang Syne

This is the same live soundtrack filmed in    • Auld Lang Syne Live at Burns Night 20...   only with all the other instruments (harmonium, snare, bass drum, hi hat) I couldn't throw in the mix at the time as I had my hands and feet full. Surely the most popular parting song sung in the world with words written by Scotland's national (and international) poet Robert Burns, his canon bestriding both the 18C Enlightenment and Romanticism. It seems "Auld Lang Syne" (literally 'old long ago') replaced 'A Parting Glass' as Scotland's favourite end of evening farewell and that one takes some beating. We always sing it with the Ecclefechan Tarts Orchestra and Choir at the winding down midnight close of our annual Burns Night banquet of haggis, poetry and song by which time I am revealing far more inner thigh than is strictly necessary and one of us seems to think it's already the end of the year! Auld Lang Syne Words by Robert Burns [Verse 1] G D Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Em C And never brought to mind? G D Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Em C G And auld lang syne! [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 2] G D And surely you’ll buy your pint cup! Em C And surely I’ll buy mine! G D And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet, Em C G for auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 3] G D We two have run about the slopes, Em C And picked the daisies fine; G D But we’ve wandered many a weary foot, Em C G Since auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 4] G D We two have paddled in the stream, Em C From morning sun till dine; G D But seas between us broad have roared Em C G Since auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Verse 5] G D And there’s a hand my trusty friend! Em C And give me a hand o’ thine! G D And we’ll take a right good-will draught, Em C G For auld lang syne. [Chorus] G D For auld lang syne, my dear, G C For auld lang syne. G D We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, Em C G For auld lang syne.

PREMIERE The Full Rabbie (International Burns Nacht 2025) with the Ecclefechan T...

PREMIERES 7.30 PM TONIGHT. The Full Rabbie (International Burns Nacht 2025) with the Ecclefechan Tarts Orchestra and Choir. ..Burns Night January 25 January 2025. A celebration ( in Norfolk by four Sassenachs and two Germans) of the universal genius and geniality, in poetry and music, of Scotland's national poet Robbie Burns. Featuring  a feats of friendship and a banquet of traditional Scots fare, Selkirk Grace, The Address to the Haggis, The To the Immortal Memory of Rabbie Burns Lecture, the after dinner prayer,  My Love is Like a Red Red Rose, To The De'il, Elegy of the Year .. (updated to 2025) and other poems, Auld Lang Syne and other songs in the spirit of the great Radical Republican European Enlightenment Scots Thinker and Romantic. Lang may yer lum reek.

The Parting Glass

Quite pleased with this.

 https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/track/the-parting-glass-3

The last song we did at Burns Night 2024. (That's our Chaucerian host John McRuddy in the picture). The song is often sung at the end of a gathering of friends and it is reportedly the most popular parting song sung in Scotland before Robert Burns wrote "Auld Lang Syne." Its popularity in Ireland has deeply influenced its sound and led to it being claimed as an Irish folk song. It was definitely not written by Joseph Haydn, as once claimed.

lyrics

Of all the money that e'er I had
I have spent it in good company
Oh and all the harm I've ever done
Alas, it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
Of all the comrades that e'er I had
They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They would wish me one more day to stay
But since it fell into my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
But since it fell into my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
Good night and joy be to you all

credits

released January 30, 2024
Songwriters: Trad / David Anthony Downes

Maz - lead vocal, acoustic guitar

Gaz - bass, glass, foot drum, hi hat, shaker

Ye'll take the Aye road and I'll take the No road?

The Act of Union 1707 was all about the money. As the incomparable Robbie Burns put it when he joined Steeleye Span in 1973 -  the drumming on this is a joy,  the voices climb and fall to die for, and the whole is worthy of the lyric - high praise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLufwtSZiIs 

Culloden was about the passion.



SCOTCH MIST

(Culloden 1746)

Hear it here 
and live at the Wolf Folk Club, Wolferton on Sep 18

So this is how it ends, Silent and Slow,

Upended in these Marshes, Letting Go.

The Pain twists red but greys into the Sky

And soon will fade, like Life’s Brief Mist, and Die.

The Way I’m fleeing no MacDonald harrows,

No claymore in my Scarlet Target burrows.

I Retreat, without Regret, from this Life

Leaving daughters, an Unprotected Wife,

A Mother: ‘Son you’re all I have’ she said,

‘It’s hard to Let You Go’ and still I’m dead.

The April Blows hard, the hills stream with Song,

My gorsed Path keeps going, but I am Gone.

I fought for a Country, though not to stay

And maybe for Duke, but mostly for Pay.

The Ape who struck off my Name from the Roll

Does it for Clan-Chief and with his Whole Soul,

For Soil in which all his Tribe will be laid

While I enjoy a Private Grave.

Keen as Thistle, they hunt Us like Game

Then, drunk with Victory, go Home again;

Yet they break the first Rule, cardinal Sin:

Never Give Combat Unless You Can Win.

And Die by One Law, One Protestant Line;

One Uniform Road to run Unchanging

Over my Body, through Heather and Fens,

Prehistoric Stones and Scotch-misted Glens

And all Ancient Haunts of kilted Clansmen:

A Race gone West, and my Spirit with them.

             Wherever you go, it’s still you,

                The wind maun blaw the same.

             This Scottish moon must mourn my bones,

                Her nightingale my name.

And now?  Ae fond kiss and then we sever?

I wrote Scotch Mist' in the hateful 80s and published it in 'Coming Home' in 1991. The introduction I've always given it is as follows - 'An English soldier is killed at Culloden, the victory/defeat that decisively settled the future of Britain  The close-knit tribal society of the Highland Scots, Romantic and attractive in many ways, was defeated by a mercenary one, organised around capital and paid labour, that would soon be imposing itself on colonies all over the world.' Well, after three centuries that 'decisive' context has utterly shifted- nothing lasts forever. Now I must add 'so far' to the sentence about the future of Britain and read the whole text in a different accent.

I'm one of the millions of English/Welsh/Ulster Britons who can't vote in this vote on the future of Britain, but for me it comes down to - who do you trust with your identity, your money, your economy, your society, your welfare, your heritage, your sport, your culture, your essential greatness of soul -  Brown or Salmond? And I don't trust Salmond with any of them. Brown,  warts and all,  represents to me where we have progressed together towards a civilised state out of that brutal capitalist-feudal showdown on 1746, and it's worth having. In my humble unfranchised British opinion. Anyone who keeps faith with Raith can't be that bad.

STOP PRESS: 55% NO

BUT A BIG YES IN GLASGOW, DUNDEE AND NORTH LANARKSHIRE. A COUNTRY CHANGED, and certainly a reversed landscape to the days of Culloden.

BUT A BIGGER YES TO THE GREAT BRITISH ADVENTURE. WELL DONE YOU SCOTS!

A Punktured History of Britain from Creation to Cromwell

Crowded House are singing
Julius Caesar
And the Roman Empire
Couldn't conquer the blue sky...

Far away and long ago, the land was divided and leaderless.
A great king, a dragon head, was needed
To unite the people and drive out the invaders...

As the leaves of summer break in spring
From forest, field and tree
So let the spirit’s freedom burst
From the walls of this Priory...

I am wild to hold, though I seem so tame,
More fair than mortals can say
And I sold my heart for a worldly crown
And I'll take your breath away...

Ann Boleyn, King Arthur, Boudicca, The Peasants Revolt, not in that order. All this and much else besides a week today at the Gin Trap. And that's just the first half before Cromwell. Don't miss this punky sleigh ride through British history!

I'm posting this on Burns Night Day and with Murray hopefully saltiring Britain towards an Aussie Open final. There's nothing Little England ('let's ditch Scotland, let's ditch Europe, let's disappear up our Offa's dyke') about the Britain I celebrate here.